Moved here right after grad. school, living is affordable, jobs usually plentiful, easy to get elsewhere (we're closer to Mexico City than NYC by air). I've had the pleasure of having Ann Richards as my governor, and the eternal shame of Bush as our prsident (and governor).

Everywhere you live has decent folks, and things to do.  No great natural redeeming features very near here, though.  If you're willing to take a plane or a long drive, there are things to see and do.  That said, we're going camping in a couple of weeks to the state park.  Should be pleasant, and I hope my son catches a fish.

...and I've probably mentioned that so many times that everyone knows already. LOL!

I'm near the Gulf Coast, so there's plenty to see and do around here - and what isn't around here is within driving distance. I love it here - born and raised - and can't see myself ever leaving.

My mother and I made the migration to Cal. in 1960, from Johnstown, Pa.  My mother had always dreamed of living in a sunshine state and even though we knew no one but an extended family member, we made the move.
A lot of it was to get out of Pa, pardon me Pa. but Johnstown is not the greatest place to live.
Having previously lived in other glorious parts of Pa., I can testify to that fact.  so we set out on Route 66, (yes 66 for those old enought to remember)and after 14 days driving we arrived in Pasadena, Ca. and the waving palm trees signaled hello to us as we drove down Colorado Blvd and I was hooked.
I never wanted to leave after that; the climate, the landscape and the people made me want to stay.  I found people here to be open, accepting and not too judgemental.  
Unfortunately the country I live in, Orange, just happens to be the birthplace of Born Again Christianity, right on the beach in Newport in the late 60's early 70's.  So says the Register, our local newspaper. Forgive me I do not recall the names or most of the details, but one man appeared and started to preach on the beach built a big following and that led to Calvery Chapel which grew and grew and with the foundation of Born Again Christianity. And I can tell  you that by late 70's some of us could see where this was going and how the direction it might take.
But all that aside, I love it here and the only other place I would want to live in would be Hawaii.

Click here to step into the Village Blue2

On the Olympic Peninsula of WA state ... about as far northwest as you can get in the continental U.S.  And I can see Canada when I look out my window.  Might swim over someday soon.

P.S.  Do you use ground turkey for your chili, Boo?  I've been using Yves fake hamburger for mine.  It's really good.  Made in Canada, of course!  But, here, all the grocery stores carry the Yves products because they're so popular and so tasty.  (The Yves hotdogs are scrumptious.)

Hickok: "You know the sound of thunder. Can you imagine that sound if I ask you to? Ma'am, listen to the thunder."

I work in NYC, live in one of the towns in NJ, just across the Hudson River.
Transplanted from Norway because of work in a large, multi-lateral organization (have a wild guess).  Don't know how much longer I'll stay here - you guys (the other 51%) are getting scarier by the day.  My two kids have dual citizenship, the oldest not to far off from draft-age.

Bon apetit with the chile.

Brooklyn Zoo, NYC, New York, USA, Mama Earth, Milky Way

Why? I've been asking myself that question. You think living in New York it would be easy to meet lots of radical free-thinkers but it's not as easy as it seems. Just more chaff to sort through to find the wheat. Not sure how much longer I'll stay here as I might go to Chicago or Toronto to work with friends on writing/film/animation projects (political, of course).

I'd like to live in South America or Europe (preferably somewhere not run by a bunch of fundamentalists) at some point, just not sure when.

Diary of a Traitor

Massachusetts - just outside of Boston.  Was Eurrailing across Europe, met and fell in love with a dark broody man from around here and just ended up here (with him).

separation of church, and state which one you belong to

I live in Bergen on the west coast of Norway. Why? Why not?

A couple of pics from the waterfront:

The world's northernmost desert wind.

Live on Cotile Lake and work in Alexandria (Cenla).  Just call me, CH.  Cat-Herder (attorney-wrangler) and Computer-Healer (network of five offices) by day, fishing widow and snake-trainer (teenage daughter) by night.

Came to Louisiana 28 years ago when my career Army officer dad turned down a job at the Pentagon and was banished (er, transferred) to Fort Humbug, a National Guard facility around Shreveport.

Cenla is cool in that it is low-key unlike New Orleans or Baton Rouge, and not a part of East Texas like Shreveport.  I still have to travel to NO and BR with some frequency because of the job thing, but mostly I get to enjoy 9 months of summer.  This year we had almost a whole month of spring (instead of the 3 or 4 days we usually have), so that means only 2 months of winter.

Today, outside my office window, the Delta Queen has been docked all day.  They conduct Civil War paddle-wheel tours from St. Louis and Memphis that take them down the Red River to the Mississippi and onto New Orleans stopping along the way to visit battlefields and other historic locales.

       

When I get home, it will still be a balmy 80-something degrees (high today was 86), it will still be daylight and then, I'll have a nice sunset to look forward to.

   

If you subtract the angst of being around attorneys all day and having a very un-representative government, I say that this was a fine day to be alive and on planet Earth.

Boo--Sorry that the sinuses are grieving you.


Claws beat Skin...I want my America back

Tucson, Arizona here!  (as I've mentioned before in posts)  I moved to the Old Pueblo for schooling at the University of Arizona and decided to make it my home after graduation.  I love the people, the culture and the fact that it's 5-10 degrees cooler than the Phoenix area which is closer to my permanent home.  Here's a pic of what I see when I sit outside of my parents' house in Superior, Arizona (where I am 7th generation).

We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit - Octavio Paz / Latino Político

Just north of San Francisco in Marin County...

Came to Oakland, California with the Army in 1974, married a native and stayed. Divorced the first and married a second native Californian. I had travelled the western US as a kid with my family and really liked this area.

Despite marriage I would probably have stayed anyway...beautiful country, wonderful and open people, liberal politics, wine country.

...okay so lousy football and baseball currently but we've had some good football years!

Del Mar, CA. where I manage a luxury apartment complex one block(most apartments have views of ocean) to the beach. I laso live there. Great job and 0 rent! I moved to CA three years ago after living on Kauai for eight years. Kauai is the most beautiful place on earth. Majestic sunsets, aquablue waters that are warm year round, fabulous people. I miss it alot but after 9/11 decided it was time to be closer to my darling grand daughter. I thought I would have a stroke the first year back driving the freeways but have adjusted. I ma fortunate to have a 10 second commute to the office.

Frodo failed...Bush has got the ring.

That's the actual view from my living room window... and it's not Las Vegas!

In the long term, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

  North Florida Panhandle, tri-state area of Alabama, Georgia, and of course FL.

  Farming community, and lots of fishing. Just bought property on the back feed waters of Lake Seminole, all spring fed, with white sand bottoms.  The well water is crystal clear and sweet as can be.

  About an hour and a half from the beaches, and that's close enough, way too many people there these days, not like it used to be.

 

"what a wonderful world"- Louis Armstrong

I live about 5 minutes from MSO, although I have never meet her. Me..Los Angeles, California...Swimmin pools, Movie Stars, and an Asshole Governor.

this diary is working out great!  I love all the pictures.

I live in Lyon, France, close to this place:

And all Boomaniacs are welcome!

"ne te courbe que pour aimer..." René Char

The little white arrow (its hard to make out because I had to resize the image) points to the building I work in.  I'm orginally from Denver, CO and moved out here from LA last year.  The jump from 70 to -30 was a bit of a shock.

"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

but I'm guarding my online identity... possible career repercussions... It probably wouldn't be too hard to figure out, but lets just say that I'm a southerner and have been all of my life. This is a winter picture from a place not very far from my home:

Dudehisattva...

Downtown Princeton, New Jersey.

Princeton campus.

Upstate NY.

Grew up in CO though and lived there until 1988.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Another Brooklynite here.  Born and raised in Manhattan (summers in NW New Jersey), and after school in Massachusetts, I made the leap across the lower East River (which as some non New Yorkers might not know, is not a river at all, but a tidal estuary) over to Brooklyn, where I've lived for the past sixteen years now.  Still work in Manhattan, though.

Why am I here?  Mostly out of sheer laziness, at this point.  If I ever figure out what I really want to do with my life, perhaps I'll move elsewhere.  Of course, I've been saying almost the exact same thing since the days of Bush père, which leads right back to the laziness factor.

I have no pictures available, but suffice it to say that I used to be able to see the World Trade Center from my living room window, along with the Statue of Liberty (which is still there, last time I checked).

On a dirt road at the edge of the Everglades.  Literally.  My home is a 2-1/2 acre fruit tree farm.  We raise lychees, longans, tangelos, and 2 kinds of tangerines.  Our trees just finished blooming so the night air is no longer heady with their perfume.

All down the paved road that takes me to the 2-lane highway that takes me to the feeder road, that takes me to town -- Miami suburbs -- are mango and avocado growers.  

Nearest neighbor 1/4 mile away.  The windows are open tonight, the frogs are singing, the radio's transmitting Good News for Modern Marlins Fans (that's me); we just spanked the Mets 9-2.

There will be a full moon Sunday and it will be so brilliant that I will be able to go outside after nightfall and see color.  There are a million more stars than you realize because no ground-lume stifles them.

A strange bird we can't identify (l o n g yellow beak, black body, short tail, melodious and varied song -- someone's pet mynah?) is nesting in a dead palm tree stump outside my kitchen window.  Two years ago a family of red-headed woodpeckers raised two chicks there.

It's peaceful but noisey.  Later tonight my sleep will be interrupted when the mockingbird sings; then the whippoorwill; then just after dawn the female marsh hawk will soar and whistle, whisking just above the Bahama grass.

It will be another full day of sunshine, popcorn clouds, and Trade Winds.  My private hell.


They burn our children in their wars and grow rich beyond the dreams of avarice

The name says it all.

Surprise, AZ
ya, retirement paradise!  Grew up in Hubert H. Humphrey country (Minnesota).  Hate the winters there but we do go up in the summer to make sure the repugs have not stolen our farm.  We are soooo norsky so really enjoyed the photos.  Our relatives were from Trondheim.  Do Norway Norwegians make lefse, rosettes,
flat bread etc? How about lutefisk? (Yuk!)

Austin, Texas, that is! I'm a third-generation Southern Californian who ended up in Hawaii for 10 years-- Oahu, the unsung paradise.  Came to Austin for economic and academic reasons, but stayed for the bluebonnets, the music, the funky neon on Burnet Road, and the weird, wonderful people. Met a sweet Southern boy, and we've been happy ever after!

Do Justice, love Mercy, walk humbly with your God.

I live in Cluj-Napoca, Romania which is in the heart of Transylvania.  Yep, that Transylvania.

Picture is from Braşov, which I go to about once a month for rest and relaxation.  Absolutely the most beautiful city in Romania.

Pax

Night and day you can find me Flogging the Simian

We're famous for our bluebonnets in this part of the world. Here's a pic I took last Spring up around Llano somewhere . . .

All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance. - Will Rogers

mountains, trees, water, deer to eat.
came for the music ...um...the fiddler, and stayed.

here's a view on one of my routes to a job that i've been working.

hope you feel better soon, BooM. Best chili I ever ate was so hot that if it had been so tasty, one would not have been able to eat it.

Make George say what you want him to!

I moved here in 1988 for a job with the local newspaper and stayed through retirement in 2003. I live 10 minutes from Magens Bay Beach, a mile of paradise, which I call St. Thomas' living room -- at least for us locals.

I visit my family in Stamford, CT, and College Park, MD, every summer, preferably during hurricane season.

It's Carnival season, so come for a visit. The local culture is fascinating and the West Indians are warm and friendly.

"Against silence. Which is slavery" - Czeslaw Milosz

Phoenix,Az.  After 20 yrs in Vegas had to slide down here in '90/'91 due to the building shutdown. Still
hangin' around...

Jail the neo-conmen

I live a 5 minute bike ride from this beach where the sun rises.

This is the view at the end of main street in my town.

Mount Baker, active volcano in Washington State.

To thine own self be true. W.S.

Sonoma County California in the north east part and nearby Santa Rosa. It's mountainous wine country. I try always to live in sight of Mount St. Helena. San Francisco where I lived for years is my City.

Mt. St. Helena in winter above the grape vines.

Fargo also! Small world,huh??  This is my first comment ever and I'm a little overwhelmed. Been reading at dkos forever but am too much of a newbie for that fast pace.The diary will probably be gone before I get this figured out. My computer skills are IFFY at best. Greetings to all from North Dakota. Sorry, but the "why" I live here would take some therapy.

Just goes to show with a little Google Images search, you can find a positive angle on just about anywhere, LOL.

As the site whence came the nature photos states, "Located just a few miles west of Kirksville (which itself is in the middle of nowhere north Missouri), Thousand Hills State Park actually very nice area and a very welcome break from the farmland and hoosiers that are so common in this part of the state.  =)"

But we do have a nationally recognised university and medical school, which keeps people (students and professors) coming in from far flung locales and thus vastly improves the local culture from what it would be without them.  Though there are some aspects of the "heartland values" that are nice, like people waving to each other and smiling, regardless of whether they know each other or not.  My wife, who moved here from Seattle to be with me, spent five or six years agitating to leave.  Now that I'm about ready to get out of here myself, she has grown attached to the town!  Go figure.

Alan
Maverick Leftist

On the island of Gozo, Malta.  Great sunsets over the Mediterranean, very old architecture with a tremendous amount of history, and a pretty laid back lifestyle.  Easy to get pretty much anywhere when necessary.

I can't seem to get a picture embedded, or I would post one with the view from my balcony.


I am a warrior for peace. And not a gentle man...Steve Mason, 1940 - 2005

I thought everybody knew that by now. :)

We moved here from Austin, Texas in 1991 and have no intention of ever moving anyplace else. When we lost our jobs and a house in Austin we started thinking about places we could live where we the heat wouldn't be so oppressive, the fire ants would be nonexistent and there might be some work. We finally settled on Seattle because my wife's sister lived here so we at least had someone we knew nearby, and because frankly after eight years of hot, horrible summers Rain City was sounding pretty good. One of the first things we did here was have Thanksgiving dinner with some friends of my sister-in-law, a family headed by a big kind-hearted bear of a man we were lucky to know before he died a few years ago.

You may wonder why a guy from Seattle calls himself "Our Man In Redmond." Hey, that sounds like a good subject for another one of these roll call diaries. Stories behind the screen names. What do you think, Booman?

I for one welcome our new Twitter overlords. @Omir55

Mostly Denver, but we get away on the weekends to this:

from my patio.

Do get well.

To thine own self be true. W.S.

I blog out of ~americanEntropy!

And I run the web site for a local action group Wake Up & Act

I live here for school (College of Charleston) I'm org. from Cincy, Ohio.  I have no plans to stay in the south after graduation.  In fact I can't wait to leave...

~americanEntropy~.
Serving truth addicts since 2004.

in the East Bay across from San Francisco. Born and bred in Allentown PA where they're closing all the factories down...

In, um, Venice Beach.

Los Angeles born and bred - and in love with the beaches, and the Santa Monica Mountains.

Started out in Wisconsin on the Mississippi and have lived in 8 different states, some several times making that about 17 times I've moved in/out of various states.  Always tiny towns. I can tell you Hollywood has nothing on small towns for sex/drugs and people being on their 3rd or 4th marriages.

I've lived up in a national forest in Montana in a beautiful log cabin/no electricity/outhouse and middle of desert in Arizona, next to a cat house in Nevada and in Charlotte, N.C. when women still wore dresses and gloves to go shopping in the late 60's.(so I looked kinda funny in my wild hippie bell bottom pants). And in a place that wasn't even on the map at the time.

I now have the misfortune to live in Taft, Ca. which is some 30 miles from Bakersfield. Smoggy-90% of the time you don't know there's mountains around here due to the smog, smells of oil as it is the heart of oilfield country...basically redneck Ca.  I live here due to my health as my sister lives here and has to help me with lots of things.

Not sure where I'd like to live except it would  have to be much more liberal and rainy/cloudy/foggy at times and near the ocean, in any country,  would love that.

'Poverty is the worst form of violence'--Gandhi

.
Roots in Créve Coeur,    Missouri

Living and laboring in the Netherlands - and loving it!

Peace Palace - International Court of Justice -
Donated by American philanthropist Carnegie around 1903.
[Decision Israeli security fence on West Bank - 2004]

Near the city of Amsterdam , Anne Frank's House and its Rembrandt museum.

Travel the route through the fields of flowers - Keukenhof.

Visit Leiden University where my daughter studied and Constantijn Huygens.

Still have close watch on US support in Iraq & Afghanistan.

Spending too much time on BooMan Tribune and less on dKos.

Never thought I would still be blogging after Nov. 2, 2004 because our president would be JFK.

Only advantage though - a chance to meet some very kind persons at BT.

In weekends have date with field hockey as a club referee. Is a TOP level sport for men and women, the Dutch winning many World Cups and Olympic Gold.

A favorite Dutch politician,   and acquaintance, who has moved on to a new job.

Oui - Liberté - Egalité - Fraternité

I live in Columbus, Ohio because I couldn't find a job anywhere else after I graduated from The Ohio State University.  I would like to move to Phoenix, Seattle, or Vancouver some day.

within sight of Penobscot Bay. Don't have any pix of my own that I can post, but these show one of the boats we see around here a lot. Sweet little day sailer, beautifully balanced and easy to sail.

We have 2-3 months of lovely weather for sailing and such, then 8-9 months of winter. It's a beautiful place, and gratifyingly blue politically, but remote and hard to get there from here.

A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it. -- Oscar Levant

I live in the armpit of California...and me no likey!

Foothills above Boulder, The Peoples Republic of, Co.

Stopped here 35 yrs. ago on the way to northern Ca...never got over the mountains.

the revolution will not be televised...

This is where I work.

It's a really poor shot taken from my phone camera but you can just make out the Chicago river and if you squint maybe you can see Lake Michigan.  You can barely see the Wrigley building on a turn in the river.